


Love Don't Roam

by elizaye



Series: Fifty Follower Fics [5]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Original Planets, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 09:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizaye/pseuds/elizaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After coming face-to-face with the Devil, Rose and the Doctor take some time off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Don't Roam

**Author's Note:**

> For my 350th follower, [dalekitsune](http://dalekitsune.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Prompt: _could you possibly do a ten/rose fic, sometime mid-s2, in which they go to super romantic places and it’s all filled up with cute shit like hand-holding and them being perfect. (guidelines flexible, as that’s a remarkably unsexy prompt but feel free to racy it up at will)_
> 
> I'll just say that this is my first attempt at a Doctor Who fic, and it's been a while since I watched it. I did a bit of research as a refresher before getting started on this, though. Also, I am dreadfully American, so please excuse anything that sounds horribly un-British.
> 
> And that's it! Hopefully it's not too bad xD

It’s breathtaking, Rose thinks as she sits down. The desert-like land stretches out endlessly, flat and dry, lit by a cluster of four moons that orbit both each other and the planet they’ve just landed on. It feels good to be reminded that the world is a nice place, especially after everything she and the Doctor went through recently.

She’s only got to close her eyes to see the scene unfolding right before her, all over again.

The evil in Toby’s body had made itself known to them, and Rose knows that she made the right call about casting him out into that black hole, but there had still been an innocent man in there somewhere, and it’s hard to remember what happened without thinking of herself as a murderer. It was worth it, obviously—of _course_ it was, but…

Well, she thinks she understands the Doctor a little better than she used to, at any rate.

“Hallo!” the Doctor says cheerily, plopping to the ground beside her. “Chips?”

“What do you mean—” Rose starts, but when she looks to her right, her companion is actually holding out a basket of chips. “Where on _Earth_ did you get those?”

“Well, you’ve already answered the question of _where_ , so a more useful question for you to be asking might actually be _when_.”

“All right, then,” Rose says, taking a chip. “ _When_ did you get these? And please tell me you didn’t just walk out of a restaurant with this basket in your hand.”

“It was… 1992, I think? Give or take three years. And what’s wrong with walking out of the restaurant carrying this?” the Doctor asks, brandishing the chip basket at her. “I paid and everything, this time.”

“You paid for the _chips_ , silly, not the basket.”

“ _Oh_.” He frowns down at the basket, and Rose starts giggling, unable to help it. “I suppose if it’s a problem, we’ll just go back and return it, when we’re done here.”

“Yes, let’s,” Rose says, still laughing a little.

“I’m glad you find this so funny,” the Doctor says, but he’s smiling, so Rose looks back out at the moons and lets her laughter fade.

They sit there in silence for a long time, just watching the moons revolve around each other in the sky. Rose has never seen or heard of anything like it. That’s… actually rather normal, around the company she currently keeps. Regardless, the place still looks beautiful, and Rose can’t help but wonder who discovered this beautiful, idyllic place.

“Doctor,” Rose says, long after the basket of chips has been emptied and set aside, “does anyone live here? On this planet, I mean.”

“Not that I know of,” he replies. “But we both know that I don’t know everything, so it’s possible. Perhaps they lived her billions and zillions of years ago—”

“Zillions? That’s… precise,” Rose interjects, smiling.

“Oh, humor me—I like the word.”

“Very well. Consider yourself humored.”

“Very kind of you, Miss Rose,” the Doctor says. Then his nose scrunches up, and he asks, “Where was I?”

“Do you mean, _when_ were you?” Rose quips.

“Ah! Zillions,” he recalls, snapping his fingers. “Perhaps zillions of years ago, there was a whole civilization here. It might not even have been desert, back then. Maybe there were kings, and queens, and knights and quests… trolls and dungeons and fire-breathing dragons—”

“You know, you _can_ tell me the truth,” Rose interrupts, rolling her eyes. “Not _everything_ has to be an adventure.”

The Doctor goes quiet for a moment, and then he says, “This planet is called Folkien—like Tolkien, but with an F. It was a…” he pauses to clear his throat before finishing, “…a place we used for raising sheep.”

Rose stares at him for a moment, just to make sure that he’s being serious, before bursting into laughter. “ _Sheep?_ The Time Lords raised _sheep?_ Did you have planets for cattle and pigs and horses as well?”

“Yes to the cows and pigs, but sadly, we had no horsey planets.” His response only makes Rose laugh harder, and he says, an indignant note stealing into his tone, “What? We needed clothes to wear and food to eat, too.”

“Oh, I know, of course. I’m sorry,” Rose says, trying to contain her laughter. “It’s just—god, I’m trying to imagine you with a shepherd’s crook, sitting under a tree or something. Oh, it’s ridiculous!”

The Doctor chuckles, a helpless air about the sound, and Rose wants to apologize, but she’s not sorry, not at all. “If you must know, I never actually tended sheep here,” the Doctor says. “I was never one for nurturing, to be honest.”

“Nonsense,” Rose says, still grinning widely. “Mickey turned out all right, didn’t he?”

“That was all him. Pure Mickey,” the Doctor says with a fond smile. “He _did_ turn out all right, though.”

It’s quiet for a while, and Rose takes a moment to remember her ex. Their time together had been—good, but in the end, they weren’t right for each other. She still loves him dearly, but staying together would have been a mistake, especially after meeting the Doctor.

“This place is lovely, sheep-raising or not,” Rose comments sometime later. She’s lying on her back now, because the moons have moved in the sky, enough that they’re not directly overhead.

“Yes, I thought you would like it,” the Doctor says.

Rose lifts her head a little and sees that he’s still looking out over the desert, and she sits up. “Do _you_ like it here, though?”

The Doctor shrugs. “It’s all right,” he answers. “It’s better than it was before, anyway.” When Rose only gives him a questioning look, he elaborates with a small smile, “Too many sheep.”

“But there aren’t any sheep here anymore,” Rose points out.

“No, but it’s a hard mental image to get past,” the Doctor replies. “Trust me—if you’d seen it when there were millions of sheep roaming the place, you wouldn’t have had eyes for the moons.”

Rose smiles. “I guess I should count myself lucky, then.” The Doctor nods sagely, and Rose says, “Well. If you know me so well, why don’t you take me to another place that I would consider beautiful?”

“Your wish is my command,” the Doctor says, hopping to his feet and marching away.

“Now, hang on! You left the chip basket!” Rose shouts, grabbing the basket and chasing after him.

* * *

The next time Rose steps out of the TARDIS, she’s almost overwhelmed by the plethora of colors before her. It looks like she’s standing in a forest, but she really can’t be sure. The tree trunks are magenta, and the leaves are turquoise. The ground is violet, and when she looks up at the sky, it’s filled with swirls of red and orange, broken with patches of fluffy green that might be clouds.

“Oh my god,” she murmurs, taking a moment to just look around.

“It’s a lot to take in,” the Doctor says, strolling past her casually.

“Uh, yes. Yes, it is,” Rose agrees, walking in a small circle around the TARDIS just to see whether or not the view is the same all around. The leaves crunching beneath her feet are the same color as the ones above her in the trees, and it’s surreal—it feels like she’s just wandered into one of her old coloring books from when she was a little girl.

“Come along,” the Doctor says when she reaches the front again. “This isn’t everything.”

Rose doesn’t bother to be surprised, because of course the colors can’t be everything. They walk straight for a while before coming into contact with an orange path, and Rose doesn’t understand where the colors are coming from—they certainly don’t look painted on, that’s for sure. The Doctor takes her hand when she slows down, leading her along.

“Where are we going?”

“Not much farther.”

Sure enough, at the end of the orange path is a small cabin, built of wood from purple-pink trees. The Doctor takes her straight up to the door and knocks on it.

“Who lives here?” Rose asks, but before the Doctor can answer her, the door swings open.

“Nobody,” the Doctor says, stepping inside. “At least, nobody right now. A… An old friend of mine came here, a long time ago. This was his place.”

“Oh,” Rose says, walking into the building. The wood on the inside has been painted brown, and all the furniture looks like it was from an old movie in the ‘60s. “Wait… was he…”

“Human?” the Doctor supplies. “He was indeed. He tried to convince me that this place had singing squids, but I’ve never met a squid that sang before. The birds compose some lovely poetry, though. If we’re lucky, we’ll see one or two today.”

Rose can’t help but smile. “Birds who… write poetry?”

“They can’t exactly _write_ it, but they recite it rather beautifully,” the Doctor says. Then he frowns. “The last time I visited was a good century or so in the past of this planet, come to think of it. The poem birds could’ve all gone extinct.” Before Rose can get a word in, the Doctor goes over to the kitchen, opening a cupboard and extracting two mugs. “Shall I put the kettle on, dear?”

“Kettle? Do you mean to say there’s tea here? Wouldn’t it be spoilt, by now?”

“Of course it would!” the Doctor says, producing a tea kettle from a different cupboard and filling it with water from the tap before placing it on what appears to be a gas stove.

“Then what do you mean to serve me?”

The Doctor shoves his hands into the pockets of his coat and pulls out two tea bags with a flourish, grinning widely. “I came prepared,” he announces, dropping the tea bags into the mugs.

“So what else do you have in those pockets of yours? Because I _will_ need to eat something, eventually. And as you so helpfully pointed out, Time Lords need to eat, too,” Rose says.

The Doctor shrugs. “We’ve got the TARDIS. After tea, I can take you anywhere you like.”

Rose turns to look out the window, still hardly able to believe that a place like this actually exists. A light breeze shakes the branches of the trees close by, and some blue leaves fall to the floor.

Smiling, Rose says, “Surprise me.”

* * *

Dinner is at a fancy Parisian restaurant, the likes of which Rose has only ever seen in movies. It turns out the Doctor is just as clueless as she is when it comes to the menu, but whatever they end up ordering is quite delicious. They get some strange looks from the waitress when the Doctor pulls a wad of bills from his pocket, and Rose has to hold back her laughter because of _course_ he would just sonic a cash machine and get whatever amount of money he needed.

Afterward, when they’re both full, they link arms and walk through the streets, nice and slow. Rose has never seen the Eiffel Tower in person, and it really is a beautiful sight.

“Wish every day could be like today,” Rose says wistfully, leaning a little closer to the Doctor.

“Oh, don’t be daft. You’d get bored,” he says.

He has a point. Still, Rose goes on, “But it’s so pleasant to have you pampering me like this. There’s certainly no way I would get bored of _that_.”

“Ah, the pampering,” the Doctor says. “I suppose there’s no reason why that can’t happen every day.”

“Is that so, Doctor?”

“It is so,” he replies.

“I’ll hold you to it, then,” Rose says, smiling and leaning her head on his shoulder.

“You needn’t worry—I always keep my promises,” the Doctor says, steering Rose to the right. She sees the TARDIS up ahead, and she supposes it’s about time that their day ended. To her surprise, the Doctor says, “I think we have time for one more stop today. Where would you like to go? Or shall this trip be another surprise?”

“I want… a beautiful place,” Rose says. “But not a place that you think _I_ would think is beautiful,” she clarifies, because that’s what the Doctor has been doing today—trying to take her to places that he thinks she would like. “I want to go somewhere that _you_ think is beautiful.”

“But it’s all beautiful,” he protests, and Rose supposes she should have expected that response.

“I mean it, Doctor,” she says as he unlocks the door of the TARDIS. “There must be at least _one_ place that you think is exceptional.”

They walk inside and Rose pulls away from the doctor, skipping up the ramp to the console room.

The Doctor races past her a second later, smiling brightly. “I think I know just the place,” he says, fiddling with the controls. As always, his enthusiasm is infectious, and Rose hangs onto the console, swaying with the movement of the TARDIS as it takes off.

But they stop moving less than a minute later, and Rose frowns. “Are we here already?”

“Yep!” the Doctor responds, bounding over to the door and pulling it open. “After you.”

Rose smiles, excited, and rushes out of the TARDIS, only to find herself in… an alley. A back alley, with loads of metal doors leading into garages or storage lockers, marked with graffiti and faded posters. The Doctor walks out behind her, and she isn’t sure how to react.

“It’s just… a dirty back alley,” she says, trying to withhold her disappointment until the Doctor has a chance to explain.

“But it _is_ exceptional,” he says, stepping past her and looking up one of the lampposts that light the area. It has three bulbs, two of which aren’t even alight anymore. “Don’t you remember?”

Rose walks farther down the alleyway, wondering if it’ll help her remember, but all she sees is more of a mess—cardboard boxes leaning against the walls, more of those faded posters, some half-ripped off. It doesn’t make any sense. Spinning around, she starts, “Doctor, I don’t—”

But the sight of the TARDIS placed where it is, framed on either side by these nondescript walls, with the door open and waiting for her, suddenly seems so familiar. Rose looks around, taking in her surroundings a second time, and when she turns back to the Doctor, he’s looking right back at her, hands sunk deep into the pockets of his coat.

“Nestene Consciousness? Easy,” he recites, smiling faintly.

God, it was like another lifetime, another man, and yet—she knows that he’s still the Doctor, _her_ Doctor, in all the ways that count. “You were useless in there,” she recalls, keeping a straight face. “You’d be dead if it wasn’t for me.”

“Yes, I would,” the Doctor says. He pauses before adding, “Thank you, Rose, for coming with me.”

Suddenly emotional, Rose finds herself at a loss for words, so she just runs over to the Doctor and throws her arms around him.

“ _Just_ a dirty back alley,” the Doctor huffs, returning the embrace. “Can’t believe you didn’t recognize it straight away.”

Rose laughs at his mock-hurt tone, burying her face in his shoulder.

“Honestly, though,” he says when she’s quieted down. “Thank you. I’d have been lost without you.”

“Obviously. You wouldn’t make it a day without me,” Rose says.

“Yes, well, good thing you’re not going anywhere, innit?”

“Good thing indeed,” Rose agrees, pulling back to smile up at him. They stay that way for a short while, and then Rose says, “All right, can we go, now? I think the smell’s starting to get to me.”

Chuckling, the Doctor says, “As you wish.”


End file.
